I too am getting this issue. The hibernate-mapping-3.0.dtd allows for meta *tags at the *hibernate-mapping>class>composite-id level so I expected that it should also be allowed at the same level in the reverse engineering dtd (hibernate-reverse-engineering-3.0.dtd) i.e. hibernate-reverse-engineering>table>primary-key. This would ensure that the hibernate-mappings can be fully reverse engineered. At the moment I'm having to add the meta tag.